The rich biodiversity of the UK’s far-flung overseas territories was highlighted recently by a Parliamentary report. Scattered throughout five oceans, these 14 islands account for much of the species biodiversity…
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Environment – Articles, Analysis, Comment
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As the effects of climate change rapidly alter communities, economies and natural systems, the need to advance new solutions to what may be the most pressing biological challenge of our time has never…
The European Commission has presented a new climate and energy policy framework for 2030 that focuses heavily on emissions reductions. Currently the EU implements “20-20-20” targets, which require a 20…
Hong Kong’s Endangered Species Advisory Committee meets today to decide whether to follow China’s lead and destroy its own (33-tonne) stockpile of contraband ivory. This is welcome news, but the destruction…
The secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, a free trade agreement being hammered out between twelve countries, has received another broadside from Wikileaks. The third leak in three months, this…
Modern safety engineering follows the aphorism, “there is no such thing as zero risk, only acceptable risk”. However, calculating chances and risk is a finicky process, especially when played out against…
It is an enduring mystery how juvenile salmon, at 12cm long and weighing perhaps only 20g, can leave a Scottish river in springtime, undertake a sojourn of thousands of kilometres around the North Atlantic…
While the prime minister has shown unequivocal support for exploiting Britain’s shale gas reserves, stating the country should “go all out for shale gas”, more cautious voices point to possible effects…
During the “polar vortex” that recently swept the US, Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo was forced to bring its polar bear indoors as it was “too cold” for a bear acclimated to Chicago’s “normal” winters (where…
Amid warnings from Washington that the US will be watching very closely, the interim deal agreed late last year to scale-back Iran’s nuclear programme has come into force, a positive development in a slow-burning…
Britain is a nation of birders. Thanks to TV shows such as the BBC’s Springwatch, bird feeding and watching is more popular than ever. More than half the UK adult population goes to feed the birds at least…
China is the most recent nation to destroy its ivory stockpile. It is the world’s largest market for illegal ivory, and the move is welcome news for threatened elephant populations. Ivory represents a…
Reports of the third successive year of rising eel catches in France suggests the eel’s drastic decline in numbers has finally bottomed out. However it’s important to note that today’s catches are a tiny…
It’s been established that enjoying green spaces in otherwise grey urban areas can lead to improved mental health for city-dwellers. But new research has revealed how surprisingly quickly those benefits…
It is always heart-breaking when children are injured by family dogs, and tragic when it leads to a death. Emotions understandably run high and there are calls for “something to be done”. Often the focus…
“Born on a perilous rock” is the title of a classic book by W J Lewis which describes Aberystwyth past and present; last weekend the town fully lived up to this description. To all intents and purposes…
The threat to Britain’s ancient woodland has been much discussed recently, the suggestion being that where they are lost to housing development they might be replaced with new woods through biodiversity…
Earthquake lights are among nature’s most strange, most ephemeral, and hard-to-explain phenomena. While rare, and only recently accepted by science, they have been reported for hundreds or even thousands…
For the second winter running the UK has been hit by widespread flooding, accompanied by agonised debates over whether government is really committed to adequate spending on flood defence. Largely overlooked…
The announcement came at New Year that David Cameron’s cabinet members might be about to trade in their limousines for electric vehicles. Such a move would make the UK government the world’s first to run…
Beneath the lush forests of the Amazon is a whole different level of diversity that new research says may be one of the keys to understanding how to stem the global impacts of deforestation. The Amazon…
We are losing our large carnivores. In ecosystems around the world, the decline of large predators such as lions, bears, dingoes, wolves, and otters is changing landscapes, from the tropics to the Arctic…
Coastal and river flooding struck Britain again this week with huge waves hitting southern and western coasts and around 100 flood warnings still in place by Wednesday evening. Disturbing but, sadly, not…
The storms which have battered the UK over recent weeks can be traced back to a strong front of contrasting temperature between particularly cold air over the north Atlantic, which has also brought extreme…
The drama and somewhat unintentional humour of first one and eventually three ships getting caught in heavy sea ice in the Southern Ocean has been closely followed since before Christmas. The images of…